DANBURY — Two-term U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty compares the contentious gun debate to historic political battles that have taken decades to play out.

“In my lifetime, I have seen how greater liberty, greater justice and greater respect ultimately does prevail, but it prevails only when people are willing to fight for it and willing to lose for it,” said Esty, a Cheshire Democrat who represents the Danbury area and northwestern Connecticut.

“It would be really easy to get discouraged over gun safety, and I have to explain all the time why I am not giving up and why people should not give up,” Esty said Tuesday during a meeting with The News-Times Editorial Board. “Civil rights and women’s rights and gay rights all take time in this country.”

Esty spoke about her support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the need for President Barack Obama to nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the opiate epidemic plaguing the state and her working trip to Afghanistan.

Esty’s comments about the growing gun debate came one day after a fourth GOP candidate announced plans to capture the 5th District seat, which hasn’t been held by a Republican in 10 years.

That candidate, Newtown businessman Bill Stevens, said protecting the Second Amendment right to bear arms is one of his top priorities.

“I have four people running against me and every single one of them is talking about guns,” Esty said.

“This is a big gun district, but having lost a (state legislative) seat as I did over my opposition to the death penalty when the public was heavily against me, I think it’s my job to ... vote my conscience.”

Esty, the vice chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, said she will continue to support gun-safety measures including:

Repealing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that gives the gun industry immunity from most lawsuits;

Banning gun sales to people on the federal “no-fly” terrorist watch list.

Esty said just as cars were made safer as a result of federal safety studies and lawsuits that forced the automobile industry to correct defects, so too could firearms be made safer with a combination of federal research and a repeal of the 2005 arms protection act.